


Domestic in Deptford

by maple_clef



Category: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: Case Fic, Challenge Response, Domestic, Gen, Humor, Post-Foxglove Summer
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-01
Updated: 2015-02-16
Packaged: 2018-03-09 22:10:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3266138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maple_clef/pseuds/maple_clef
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wyndham was the very model of a modern sink estate, the original tenants having been evicted before plans to sell the land to a developer fell through. With its community disbanded and dispersed across London to pastures new, Wyndham: the Next Generation now had a reputation for being Lewisham Council’s primary dumping ground for tenants they considered too difficult to house elsewhere.</p><p>This was no Skygarden; it was where community spirit went to die. Quite possibly literally...</p><p>Peter and Nightingale go undercover on a council estate to investigate some disappearances, and find truth in the old adage that things are often not what they appear to be.</p><p>
  <i>A/N: This is the fic formerly known as Deptford Blue, a title which I realised was almost identical to that of an existing fic on here, in this fandom. I hope the change doesn't cause too much confusion, but I thought it was for the best!</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was going to be a much shorter fun & silly fic, until I realised that it was basically going to have to be casefic (whoops)- and it grew and will now be posted in three parts. Hopefully with not much of a wait between!
> 
> Part 1, in which Peter gives Nightingale a makeover, a Cunning Plan is set in motion, and our heroes move in to their temporary home - a recently-vacated (don't ask) council flat on the notorious Wyndham estate - home to the desperately criminal and the criminally desperate.

I gave him five minutes before going in after him. The entrance was deserted; a few empty cardboard boxes in one corner, and a worn-looking chair in what might have been a waiting area. I tentatively peered round into the main corridor, but couldn’t see anyone about.

‘Sir? It’s me. Is everything okay?’

There was an uncharacteristically inarticulate grunt, and then Nightingale emerged from behind a curtain.

I don’t know what I’d expected, but it took me a good deal of self-control not to laugh when he stepped out of the changing cubicle.

Nightingale was dressed in dark grey Adidas tracksuit bottoms, complete with stripes down the side of the leg. These were complemented by a navy blue Slazenger t-shirt and a pair of black leather Reebok Classics. The white sport socks were the icing on the cake.

It wasn’t a bad look, to be honest – and when paired with the sour expression Nightingale was currently sporting it said “Don’t mess with me. I’m really pissed off, I haven’t had nearly enough of my drug of choice, and you, sunshine, are in my fucking way.”

It was, in fact, exactly what we were going for.

‘That’s perfect, Sir’ I said. ‘Just what your wardrobe was missing. We might want to pick up another pair of tracky bums and some more t-shirts, though.’

Nightingale sighed. ‘I suppose you’re right, Peter. Is this the last shop? I think I’m going to need a strong coffee fairly soon.’

I confirmed that we were indeed at the end of our sartorial safari of the Great British high street, and without further comment he vanished back into the changing cubicle to de-chav. It had been a long day, and although on one level I was enjoying this immensely, the reality of what we were going to do had started to put up a fight for my attention. Coffee would be good.

I saw that the clothes had been neatly folded and placed just outside Nightingale’s cubicle, so to hasten our departure I picked up the pile and headed to the till, snagging the extras on the way. As I was waiting, I noticed the rack of dressing gowns just alongside the queue. Their placement reminded me a) that it was Father’s Day soon, and b) that Nightingale’s exquisite Dege & Skinner dressing gown – modelled rather fetchingly by him at the nocturnal fire alarm two weeks back – was not going to be seen dead where we were going.

I picked up two light grey terry dressing gowns, added them to my hoard, and managed to distract the teenaged white boy behind the counter from his conversation long enough to pay for the goods.

By this point, there were quite a lot of shopping bags, so when Nightingale joined me there was a moment of re-distributing the load between us before setting off to seek some fortification.

 

We ended up in Costa Coffee, on the basis that it was just down the escalator from Sports Direct, and tucked away near an exit, away from the thronging masses of Westfields-proper. As a shopping centre Westfields is enormous, modern, and so damn ugly that it was once nominated for the Carbuncle Cup, an honour bestowed annually on the worst offenders in crimes against architecture. But it’s convenient and marginally more efficient than Oxford Street when you’re on a mission, as we were.

A table with two comfy armchairs became available, so I went to claim it, draping our purchases protectively across the second seat until Nightingale arrived with a couple of macchiatos, a pair of double espresso chasers and some tired-looking Danish pastries that nevertheless looked pretty appealing after four hours of shopping. I scooped the bags onto the floor and, having deposited the caffeinated products carefully on the table, he sank into his armchair with a heavy sigh.

We drank in silence for at least a minute, each of us no doubt contemplating some of the horrors of the day – those already endured, and those yet to come.

‘Right,’ said Nightingale. While I’d been staring charismatically and moodily into the middle distance, he’d seen away both of his coffees. He clearly meant business, and seemed to have shaken the slightly frantic, deer-in-the-headlights look he’d been wearing since our arrival at Westfields. ‘Let’s go over the plan for this evening,’ he said.

The plan, such as it was, was simple. Frank Caffrey and a borrowed white van would be ferrying me and Nightingale from the Folly to our new temporary home, to whit: the delightful Wyndham estate in Deptford. We’d had wind of suspicious activity there, with several recent disappearances in the area possibly linked to the Faceless Man. The tip-off and had come via Zach from the demi-monde, many of whose members, it transpired, lived on the estate themselves. Quite a number of people in the magical community were uneasy about the disappearances, and apparently might be willing to talk to us. Once installed, we would rendezvous with one or more potential contacts – also courtesy of Mr Palmer – and hopefully get some promising intel.

Wyndham was the very model of a modern sink estate, the original tenants having been evicted before plans to sell the land to a developer fell through. With its community having been disbanded and dispersed across London to pastures new, Wyndham: The Next Generation now had a reputation for being Lewisham Council’s primary dumping ground for tenants they considered too difficult to house elsewhere. The logic being, I suppose, that by putting them in one place it would be easier for the council to forget about them and for the Met to keep an eye on them – and of course we were all about as grateful for this as you can imagine.

This was no Skygarden; it was where community spirit went to die. Quite possibly _literally_ ; it wouldn’t surprise me at this point – I made a mental note to ask Beverley next time I saw her. And so despite my protests that I’d be just fine on my own, Nightingale had insisted that this wasn’t an option. A flat had suddenly become available, and the decontamination (you don’t want to know) and cleaning had finally been completed this morning – just in time for us to get foisted on the unsuspecting residents in the guise of another couple of losers who the council were particularly desperate to be shot of. It’s hardly the progressive face of social housing, but it suited our purpose rather well.

‘Have we got clearance yet, from DPS?’ I asked Nightingale. He grimaced. After Skygarden, there had been a certain amount of anxiety amongst our betters when they caught wind of our proposed undercover jaunt. No doubt lots of chin scratching and serious discussion had occurred before signing off on it. No wonder; both of us were still technically under review.

‘Yes, everything has been sanctioned. Seawoll and his team have, uh, _de facto_ oversight of the operation while we’re undercover.’

‘I bet he was ecstatic,’ I said.

‘Quite.’ Nightingale frowned, but I’m pretty sure I caught him suppressing a smile.

‘Anyway,’ he continued, ‘we’re to report anything major, and check in with Stephanopolous every morning, but otherwise we can just get on with it. So hopefully we shan’t be troubling our friends at Belgravia much at all. Although it’s incredible the number of our esteemed colleagues who saw the need to advise me not to… ah, yes – not to “fuck things up”.’

‘Shocking.’

‘Lewisham have been informed, and will offer support if needed – but will otherwise treat us with the same suspicion and mistrust they extend to the rest of their customers.’

‘To support our cover?’

‘I _think_ that’s what they meant,’ said Nightingale, and he was definitely grinning now. ‘That’s certainly how I chose to take it.’

A couple of white girls passed our table, heading out of Costa and talking rapidly in what I thought was Polish, but might have been Russian or Lithuanian for all I knew. I glanced at Nightingale, and he nodded.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I think Abdul was right.’

 

* * *

 

Back when we’d started discussing the logistics of our secret-squirrel jaunt, a week or so before getting the “go” on the flat, there had been some obvious issues to iron out. For, whilst Nightingale – as he reminded us – was perfectly used to undercover work, having spent several years out and about in the Colonies (as they were then), fitting in at Wyndham would be an entirely different prospect. Because, while Nightingale could speak many languages, I suspected that “estuary English” might be beyond even his linguistic talents.

‘I’m sure I can effect an appropriate accent, Peter,’ he’d protested. And then had gone on to disprove this in spectacular and hilarious fashion. I’d laughed. Dr Walid had laughed. Even Molly had laughed, in that hissy way of hers, although unlike us she at least had the grace not to do it to his face. It wasn’t _uniformly_ bad, as fake accents go, but that lack of uniformity was part of the problem. At its best, it was a perfectly respectable cockney – as heard across London… circa the 1920s. At its worst, it was somewhere between Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins and (when Nightingale tried to add a soupcon of “modernity” to his vernacular) Ali G.

In the end, Nightingale had admitted defeat and joined us, laughing. ‘Okay, fine. I take your point,’ he said. ‘What do you suggest?’

Given his facility with Russian, and the reasonably-sized population of Eastern Europeans in London, I’d wondered if he could pretend to be Polish or Ukrainian. But Dr Walid had pointed out that the same problem would apply in the event that Nightingale actually had to engage anyone in conversation in either of those languages which, despite being similar and having some degree of mutual intelligibility, were not the same as Russian. Plus, I suspected Nightingale’s Russian was pre-glasnost, if not pre-Bolshevik. I certainly couldn’t see him passing for a 21st century builder.

I’d been all for trying to coach Nightingale in the appropriate vernacular and accent for a modern day sarf-Londoner, but that might have been partly out of a desire for revenge for months of Latin lessons. Plus, we didn’t know how much time we’d have. It was Dr Walid who came up with an ingenious solution, although he credited Molly with providing the inspiration for the idea. He’d just thanked Molly for pouring him a second cup of tea, and received the usual polite nod before she glided off across the atrium towards the kitchen – I hoped to fetch some more biscuits.

‘Of course, you could just be the strong, silent type, Thomas,’ he said.

Nightingale looked thoughtful. ‘Care to elaborate?’ he asked. I beat Abdul to it.

‘You don’t have to say anything,’ I said.

‘Give them no evidence to use against you,’ said Abdul with glee, paraphrasing the caution, which he apparently knew better than Nightingale.

‘How will I communicate?’ asked Nightingale, frowning.

‘Molly seems to manage,’ I said. It was a joke, but it did make me wonder, somewhat belatedly, how that worked. And what accent Molly would have, if she suddenly revealed she could speak. And what she might say. I remembered the keylogger I’d installed, back in the summer – and made a mental note to check the logs. And to maybe look into voice production software – after all, it had worked for Lesley, when she’d needed it. Why not Molly, if she were so inclined?

‘You probably won’t need to say much to anyone other than Peter here,’ said Abdul, bringing me back to the matter at hand. ‘You could let him do all your talking – that’s what juniors are for, after all.’ I had visions of him dispatching F2s to all corners of the hospital to run errands for him back at UCH. And he was right.

‘That would work, sir,’ I said. ‘Most of our conversation will be inside the flat, where no-one will hear you.’ I thought of how thin the walls were in some council flats. ‘At least, not clearly. And when we’re out and about, you can just keep schtum. And if you want to tell me anything, get me to come over to you and tell me quietly.’

‘Like in the Godfather,’ Abdul added helpfully.

‘Or Vinnie Jones in most of his films,’ I said, although I knew it would be lost on Nightingale. ‘You can be the hard man who’s so hard he never has to say anything. Unless _with his fists_.’ I gave Nightingale a cheeky grin. He countered with an arch look, but I wasn’t fooled. He was in.

‘Very well,’ said Nightingale. ‘I shall channel Vinnie Jones.’ The corners of his mouth twitched.

Abdul laughed, clearly enjoying the image of Nightingale as a gangster from a Guy Ritchie film. And so that became the image we were to build for him, hence our mission to Westfields.

 

* * *

 

We got back to the Folly in good time for dinner, so Nightingale took his hoard upstairs to pack, while I joined Abdul, who was in the atrium reading a newspaper. He’d agreed to “house-sit” for the short time we’d be away, at least when not at work, given that it would make communication with Molly a little easier, and he could pass on any non-urgent messages between her and us and generally keep her company. In an emergency, such as a hypothetical raid on the Folly by ethically challenged magicians, Molly would have use of a panic button which would simultaneously page both Frank Caffrey and Zulu Central – or me and Nightingale, if you prefer – at our temporary Deptford HQ.

Dinner was a convivial affair, and Frank came and joined us as we were having coffee. Me and Nightingale excused ourselves and went upstairs to change and get our things. I was more or less ready, so I beat Nightingale down and had the pleasure of witnessing the grand public debut of his new look. I’d been chatting with Frank and Abdul, when I suddenly noticed that neither of them were paying attention to me, but were instead staring agog over my shoulder. There may even have been a gasp. Or I may have imagined it. I turned round to look.

Nightingale was descending the stairs to meet us - in a way that had me in mind of Cinderella making her grand entrance to the ball - trying valiantly to ignore the fact that everyone was staring at him. He was wearing jeans (Burtons, £24.99) and a chunky cable jumper (model’s own), and the pair of tan Caterpillar boots (Debenhams, £60) that we’d spent the best part of a week “distressing”. He was carrying my spare sports bag on one shoulder, and a Berghaus fleece-lined waterproof jacket slung over his other arm. He looked… Normal. Like a normal, 40 year old guy. A guy with catalogue model rugged good looks, maybe, but definitely a regular dude rather than the Nightingale I had previously known. It was unnerving.

There was a certain hesitance to the way he was moving that wasn’t normally there – but then, the poor bastard had the three of us gawping at him, so perhaps that was understandable. But when he reached the bottom of the stairs, he threw down the bag and suddenly _glared_ at us with such ferocity that Abdul and I actually took a step back. Frank was clearly made of sterner stuff, but I saw him square his shoulders. Then, just as suddenly, Nightingale grinned, sort of – a dangerous, feral smile, like a shark.

‘How’s that?’ he said, and the effect was diluted somewhat. He still sounded like him. ‘Would… uh, _Vinnie_ approve?’

‘Very good, sir’ I said. Abdul laughed.

Frank snorted, said nothing, but picked up Nightingale’s holdall and headed towards the coach house. I grabbed my own bags and followed him, leaving Nightingale to give last minute instructions to Molly and Abdul. When I came back to collect Toby, Nightingale was finishing up and we both said our goodbyes and went to join Frank in the borrowed Transit van, which had been sitting ready since we’d packed it this morning with the few bits of furniture and essentials we were taking. Another favour I owed my cousin. Luckily he’d had the day off work so hadn’t needed to use it.

I didn’t say much on the ride across town, leaving Nightingale to make small talk with Frank about rugby and the military. At least, I assumed that was what they were talking about; for all I knew they were discussing the evolution of EDM from acid house. I wasn’t really paying attention, given that most of my mental capacity was engaged in trying not to think about the last time I did this, and the person I’d done it with. I hadn’t heard from Lesley since she’d called me in Herefordshire. I had just about got to the stage where I wasn’t obsessively checking my phone for cryptic messages, but I’m not going to lie – I still think about her a lot. What she’s up to. What she was trying to warn us about. How the hell we ended up on opposite teams. At some point, I must have drifted off, because I was jolted awake as Frank pulled into a space, braked and yanked the handbrake in short succession, bringing us to an abrupt stop.

Deptford was dark, cold and it was drizzling as me and Nightingale each hefted a camp bed from the back of the Transit and schlepped towards the entrance to the east block of the Wyndham estate. We’d been told that none of the lifts were working, but luckily we were only on the third floor. So it could have been worse, although we were both pretty out of breath by the time we had hauled our beds up six half-flights of stairs. The stairwell smelled strongly of piss, so it took the edge off the strange chemical aroma that wafted out of the recently sanitised flat as I opened the door.

The cleaners had done a professional job, and the carpets had been replaced – although the walls were a bit grotty. It was better than I’d been expecting, and Nightingale didn’t seem too bothered, although he was quiet and didn’t say much as we shuttled back and forth between the flat and the van. It didn’t take us more than half an hour – we didn’t have very much. Nightingale went down one last time to collect our bags and Toby, and to see Frank off, and I opened the box marked “Kitchen” and found the kettle. By the time he returned, tea was brewing and I’d opened a packet of Jaffa cakes. We sat down on the futon, which was currently at an awkward angle across the middle of the living room, and I was just about to offer Nightingale a Jaffa cake when all the lights when off. Toby barked.

‘Bugger,’ I said.

‘Lux.’ Nightingale fixed his werelight to the ceiling. He stood up, and looked around cautiously. ‘Perhaps the fuse has gone – did you see a fusebox anywhere?’

‘I’m not sure it’s that, sir,’ I said. ‘There wasn’t anything drawing much power when it went off; if a light bulb had gone we’d still have the light in the kitchen.’

‘Maybe it’s the entire block?’ said Nightingale.

I went to have a look out of the window, trying to get enough of an angle to see the other flats. No; everyone else seemed to be with power. But –

‘Hang on, sir,’ I said. ‘I think the meter just needs feeding. I’ll have a look…’

I cast my own werelight and took it into the entrance hall, trying not to trip over Toby, and located the meter box. Sure enough, the dials showed it was empty. We were probably lucky there had been any credit left; the cleaning company must have fed it earlier. I returned to the living room and went to find my wallet. It was unhelpfully empty of coinage.

‘Do you have any fifties?’ I asked Nightingale. I pretended not to notice him reach for his clip before rummaging in his bag for his change purse. He handed the whole thing to me, and I went and fed five pounds in fifty pence pieces and pound coins into the meter, and as if by science, all the lights came back on. I made a point of turning some of them off as I went back to attend to my tea. It was cold, but I wasn’t sure how long the credit would last and we were definitely going to want to use the kettle in the morning. I hesitated, looking towards the kitchen.

Nightingale smiled and took my mug, and muttered a spell that I thought was a variant of lux, and about three _formae_ long.

‘Thank you,’ I said as he handed it back, now gently steaming. I passed him a Jaffa cake and he took one and examined it, before taking a bite.

‘Interesting,’ said Nightingale. ‘You say it’s a form of cake?’

‘No-one knows,’ I explained. ‘It occupies a state somewhere between cake and biscuit, for tax purposes.’

‘Indeed?’ he said. ‘Well, it’s very nice.’ So I handed him another.

We sat in companionable silence. The futon was quite cosy for two – three, if you included Toby, who had somehow insinuated himself between us and was snoring peacefully. He really needed to be taken for a walk before we turned in, and to be honest I was nearly ready for bed already, even though it wasn’t much past ten. I told Nightingale of my intention, and he said he’d make a start on setting up the beds while I was out. Toby grizzled a bit at being woken, but soon perked up when I dug out his lead, attached it and led him out the front door of the flat.

I didn’t want to go far, mainly because I was knackered, but also because – although Nightingale and I had seen photos and plans of the estate - it was dark and I wasn’t properly oriented yet. So Toby and I slowly made our way along the balcony-slash-corridor that ran along the length of our side of the block. The doors to the flats were along one side, and the other had a concrete wall about halfway up but above this was open to the elements. There was dim emergency lighting in the ceiling above, but it was the lights in the street below that uplit the drizzle that was still falling and gave it a weird sort of glow. Not _that_ sort of weird. The normal sort. There were voices somewhere below – kids, I thought – but otherwise there was very little sound, even from the flats, other than the odd snatch of canned laughter from a TV.

Our flat was right at one end of the corridor, so I took Toby all the way along to the other end and back, giving him ample opportunity to sample the cornucopia of smells along the way. He seemed happy, and did what he had to do (as did I, responsible dog owner that I am). As we reached the front door to our flat, I was groping around in my pocket for the keys, when Toby barked softly.

I turned around to see I was being watched by a young mixed race boy, about six, standing outside a flat about three doors down. The front door was ajar, light visible inside.

‘Hello,’ I said. ‘Should you be out?’

His eyes grew wide, and he shot back into his flat without a word. Out of habit, I made a note to ask Stephanopolous to run an IIP check on the occupants tomorrow morning.

When I managed to get back into our flat, I found Nightingale hadn’t been idle. The beds were both made, and my stuff had been moved into one of the rooms. The kitchen supplies had all been found proper homes, and in the living room the futon was now in a more sensible position along the wall. The table from the tech cave had been put in the other half of the room with the folding camping chairs arranged round it. I could have sworn I’d only been gone twenty minutes, thirty tops.

Nightingale stuck his head out of the bathroom as I headed down the corridor towards the room he’d set up for me.

‘Everything okay?’ he asked. His hair was damp. Somehow he’d even found the time to get showered and changed. I wondered if he’d somehow smuggled Molly along in one of his bags, and she’d given him a hand.

‘Eleven o’clock and all is well,’ I said. ‘You’ve been busy.’

He just smiled. ‘I had a certain amount of motivation to get it done so that I could go to bed. It’s been an exhausting day, what with one thing and another.’

I agreed that it had. ‘Hang on sir,’ I said, suddenly remembering our jaunt in Sports Direct. ‘I’ve got something for you.’

I went and found my big holdall, opened it and extracted one of the grey dressing gowns. It was taking up about a third of the space in the bag. I returned to Nightingale, who was waiting patiently in the corridor outside his room.

‘Here you go. Housewarming gift. As it were.’

He looked completely taken aback.

‘Thank you Peter,’ he said. ‘This is incredibly thoughtful of you.’

I grinned as he tentatively tried it on, folding it around him and tying the belt fast. It suited him. Perhaps not as well as his check Dege & Skinner one with the angora lining and lilac piping. But it was soft and fluffy in all its synthetic glory, and you can’t go wrong with grey.

‘Excellent,’ he said, looking genuinely pleased – or at least doing a good job of pretending to be. ‘Very comfy.’

‘Goodnight, sir,’ I said.

‘Goodnight, Peter,’ he replied, and vanished without further ceremony into his room, closing the door behind him.

After a quick shower I got ready for bed, turned off the light and got under the covers. The camp bed was a bit creaky, but surprisingly comfortable, and the bedclothes were freshly laundered and smelled of wildflowers. I stared at the ceiling at the dark, thinking tired thoughts. Just before I drifted off, I had one last look at my phone, but there were no messages.

 

_Coming up in part 2: Nightingale becomes a domestic Vinnie Jones and Peter gets to know the locals._


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peter gets to know the local area, Nightingale becomes a rather more _domestic_ Vinnie Jones than expected, and a second dressing gown makes an appearance.

I woke the next morning to the smell of bacon wafting down the corridor from the kitchen. I checked the time: 7am. I’d slept through the night, which was starting to happen more often now, although the long day yesterday must have had something to do with it. There was a message from Beverley on my phone: _Where r u? Need 2 talk_. I texted back: _Work – call 2nite?_ Then, stomach rumbling, I extracted myself from the tangle of blankets and the me-shaped depression in the camp bed.

Since I’ve been at the Folly, I’ve gotten used to washing and dressing before making an appearance in polite company. Meaning, Nightingale. But the food smelled like it was nearly ready, and I wouldn’t be – not for a while, if I had to dress. I hesitated. In my bag was the second dressing gown. I’d _definitely_ originally bought it for my dad, as a Father’s Day gift – but then somehow I’d gone and packed it and brought it, along with Nightingale’s. So… it would be silly to bring it all this way and not wear it. But the thought of rocking up to breakfast in a matching gown to the one I’d just given my boss…

Fuck it. It was chilly, and I was hungry.

Thus cloaked, I trotted down the corridor, opened the door to the kitchen and stuck my head round, getting a good lungful of breakfast fumes. Nightingale was standing at the counter, his back to me, absorbed by the task at hand – dishing up poached eggs, bacon and baked beans on toast; the kettle was boiling and I could see two mugs set out. He had brought his digital radio from home and the Today Programme was providing a background drone of Serious Topical Discussion. I was so busy taking in this domestic scene, that I realised I’d been standing in the doorway for fully thirty seconds and not said anything.

I cleared my throat. ‘Morning, sir,’ I said.

He turned around and smiled. ‘Ah, Peter – good. I thought I’d let you sleep in, but as you can see, breakfast is ready.’

Nightingale handed me the plates, now laden with food. ‘If you could take these through, I’ll bring the coffee and be with you shortly.’ He smiled again and turned back to give his full attention to Operation Caffeine.

He wasn’t wearing his dressing gown, as it turned out - having dressed, as usual. Except that he didn’t _usually_ dress so casually – he’d gone for a tracksuit and t-shirt combo from yesterday’s Sports Direct spree. I wasn’t sure if that made it more or less weird than us being dressed like the Bobbsey Twins, but I decided not to dwell on it, and wordlessly took our breakfast in to the living room. The tech-cave table had already been laid with cutlery.

Have you ever seriously questioned if you’re actually awake or still in some weird dream? The thought crossed my mind, as the morning sunlight streamed through the dirty window, giving everything in the room a vintage sepia warmth. Only the residual chemical smell acted as an anchor to the reality of the present. I sat down as Nightingale came in with two steaming mugs of coffee. Molly had ordered some sort of posh instant as part of our ‘care package’, and it smelled pretty good.

We tucked in. It was good, honest breakfast fayre – and it hit the spot. I wondered when Nightingale had had the chance to practice his culinary skills, since he’d presumably gone from home, to school, to the Folly – benefitting from others’ catering throughout. I said as much.

‘Peter,’ he chided. ‘You do have a very particular view of my early life. I grant you, by this point I’ve spent more time than not being fed by Molly. But don’t forget I mostly worked away from the Folly, before the war. I’m perfectly able to feed myself. I quite enjoy cooking, in fact.’

I thought of his years adventuring, out and about in far-flung parts of the Empire and beyond. Eating fire-roasted yak in the mountains of Tibet, no doubt. I still had so many questions, and he must have some pretty good stories, but I felt that it would be a bit much to interrogate him over breakfast on our first morning away from the Folly. Soon, though.

‘Well, it’s very tasty,’ I said. Because it was. ‘Thank you.’

Nightingale looked pleased. ‘You’re very welcome,’ he said. ‘Not a patch on Molly, of course, but I think we’ll survive the week.’

Speaking of which - we’d almost exhausted our food supplies, having only brought the bare minimum to see us through until we could get to the shops.

‘I’ve started a list,’ said Nightingale. ‘See if there’s anything you think we need to add. We can stock up later while we’re out and about.’

I took our now-empty plates through to the kitchen and did the washing up while Nightingale checked in with Stephanopoulos. Not that there was anything much to report, of course, but she was expecting a daily update. I went through my mental “to do” list for the day as I finished the dishes and wiped down the counter and stove.

From a policing point of view, our first action would be to have a good look round the estate and surrounding area, which we could do under the guise of walking the dog. I looked at Toby, who was currently napping in the corner of the kitchen. Nightingale had taken him out for a short walk while I’d been having a lie in, but some proper exercise would do him good. Once we’d gotten our bearings, we were going to have to start looking for the contacts on Zach’s list. We had some names, but most of them were probably nicknames and there weren’t any addresses so we were a bit short on actual leads. I really hoped it wasn’t going to be a wild goose chase, given the trouble we’d had setting this whole thing up, but Zach had been adamant that it would be worth our while.

At some point today we needed to sort out internet access for the flat. There wasn’t a working landline, so it was going to have to be 4G, if we could get it. I wasn’t all that happy about using wireless technology to access HOLMES, but the alternative was the local internet café, and that clearly wasn’t going to be any better for security.

And I needed to remember to call Beverley later. I wondered what she needed to talk to me about. We’d seen quite a bit of each other since we got back from Herefordshire, and it had been… good, actually. Really good. But the last week or so we’d both been busy with our own things, so it’d been about ten days since we’d spoke. Perhaps she just wanted a catch up. I wondered vaguely whether it would be okay to invite her over, although I wasn’t sure it was the best idea, given that we were supposed to be keeping a low profile, to have any guests – let alone river goddesses who couldn’t help but turn heads wherever they went.

Nightingale came and joined me in the kitchen. ‘Stephanopoulos sends her regards,’ he said, grabbing a tea towel and starting to dry the crockery. ‘She’s going to put in an IIP request for you, for our neighbours along the corridor.’

‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘It’s almost definitely nothing, to be honest, but at least it makes it look like we’re not twiddling our thumbs.’

Of course, I was wrong on both counts. But at least I remembered to run the check, and you can’t be worrying too much about what other people think of you.

*

Nightingale finished straightening up in the kitchen while I finally got washed and dressed, still feeling a bit discombobulated. The shower was nice and warm – until the electricity ran out, and things got rather fresh. Woke me up, though. I put “change for the meter” on the shopping list, along with a few other things.

By the time we left the flat, it was just after nine and the estate was quiet. Presumably this meant that its inhabitants were variously at work, school and community service – judging from the profile that Lewisham had sent through. But you never know. It was bright and sunny but cool, with a fair breeze that rattled along the walkway and chased us down the stairwell as we made our way out onto the road.

Wyndham Estate was only a stone’s throw from Deptford High Street, and the breeze carried the smell of fish towards us from the market stalls. Toby was in his element, tail going ten to the dozen as he led us west along Giffin Street, nose planted at pavement level. Me and Nightingale were trying not to look too much like police scoping the area out, even if that’s exactly what we were both doing. I’ve been to Deptford before as my cousin Obe’s girlfriend lives nearby, but Nightingale hadn’t set foot here since the war. ‘And even then I was only passing through really, visiting the Depot,’ he said, referring to the dockyard, which had been requisitioned for Army supplies during the First and Second World Wars.

We didn’t spot anything unusual, and soon emerged onto the busy high street with the market in full flow around us. We had a bit of a wander, checking out the stalls. There was a mix of groceries – fresh fish, fruit and vegetables, and some stalls selling street food – in amongst clothes, fabric, bags and all manner of household goods. I nearly had an altercation with a mannequin in a bright blue wrapper complete with blouse and head tie whilst I was trying to unwind Toby’s lead from the leg of a table. I shot an apologetic smile at the young Nigerian stallholder and he grinned at me, before turning to resume the conversation he’d been having with a customer. Nightingale had moved quite a way along the high street, and was checking out some fish. I went to join him.

‘Seen something you like?’ I asked, only narrowly avoiding calling him “sir”, which we’d decided would be a bad habit whilst out and about.

‘Mmm,’ said Nightingale quietly, keeping his posh on the down-low. ‘How does pan-fried sea bream sound, for dinner?’

It sounded great, so we bought a couple of nice looking fillets. I wondered if Nightingale was intending to cater for the length of our stay. Further along, some purple sprouting broccoli and marrowfat peas caught his eye, and these joined the fish along with carrots and potatoes. Well, we wouldn’t get scurvy, that was for certain.

We continued north on Deptford High Street, past the train station and almost to the end before turning off onto Edward Street, strolled through the dense residential housing until we could hang a left onto Amersham Vale. This part of Deptford was strictly low rise, mostly 70s council housing and a couple of smart modern industrial estates in gaps where older buildings had been demolished. There were even allotments along one side of Amersham Vale; lots of well-tended plots interspersed with sheds. Everything was a bit shabby, but it seemed like quite a nice area to me. We did a silent salute to our comrades at Deptford Police Station and continued south to Douglas Way, where we turned left again to bring us in a loop back towards the high street, passing The Albany, Deptford’s arts centre, as we went. Nightingale insisted on popping in to see what was on, which seemed a bit out of character for “Vinnie”, but I didn’t say anything.

As soon as we stepped into the lobby, I regretted that decision. The Albany was a pretty low key place, but the pair of us were ostensibly more at home with the market traders, the way we were dressed down. We were definitely getting some concerned looks. A young white woman leaned over the reception desk, a fixed smile on her face.

‘Can I help you?’ she asked, a little too brightly.

Nightingale hesitated, clearly wanting to speak but resisting so as not to break what I was beginning to think of as his ‘chav glamour’. I tried to look as presentable and non-threatening as I could as an IC3-ish male in his twenties wearing combats, trainers and a hoody. ‘We’re just looking for a programme of events, if you’ve got one,’ I said.

She relaxed, a little. ‘Oh, of _course_ – here you go’ she said, handing me a glossy brochure. ‘Is there anything else?’ The corollary, “or will you be leaving now?” was tacet, but heartfelt.

‘Um,’ I said, and looked at Nightingale, who was frowning slightly but shook his head. ‘Nah, that’s all. Thanks,’ I said and we made tracks. I could feel her watching us all the way out of the building.

Once outside, Nightingale turned to me and raised an eyebrow. ‘One rather wonders what she was expecting us to do,’ he said.

‘No idea,’ I said, because I _did_ have a fair idea but didn’t really want have that discussion right here, right now. And I thought that the experience was probably something he’d be better off reflecting on himself. Would he take the red pill or the blue pill?

We’d only scoped out about a quarter of the area we wanted to eventually cover, but Nightingale wanted to take the groceries back to the flat so they wouldn’t spoil, and we thought it would be a good idea to have a look round the estate while most of the inhabitants were out and we still had the light. Some of the stallholders were already starting to pack up, radios tuned to Magic FM, chatting to one another as they dismantled their stalls. We swung by Tesco Express on the high street to pick up the remainder of the shopping list – including plenty of change for the meter, provided by a coin dispenser that looked like it saw a lot of action. As we left and made our way back towards Giffin Street, I thought I caught a black woman watching us from across the road – but when I looked again she was nowhere to be seen.

*

As soon as we got back to the flat, Toby went straight to the living room and found a spot on the sofa, promptly falling asleep. I suspected that this was tactical, pre-empting Nightingale from getting him to move. We made ourselves sandwiches for lunch and Nightingale read _The Express_ (this had been a bitter compromise between _The Sun_ and his usual _Telegraph_ , silently fought and negotiated in the queue at the supermarket) and grumbled at the inferior standard of their crossword.

I took myself into my room and called my cousin Obe to see if he could hook us up with mobile broadband. ‘No problem,’ he said, after I’d explained what I wanted. ‘I can come by later this afternoon, if you’re around.’ I told him to call when he was in the area and went to the kitchen to find Nightingale had given up the crossword for a bad job and had beaten me to the washing up, even though I’d _said_ I was going to do it. I pointed this out.

‘It’s fine, Peter,’ he said – but I could see that this might be an ongoing source of contention – a domestic turf war, if you will, between the pair of us. I thought back to my time in shared accommodation, while I’d been a PCSO. Disagreements over whose turn it was to wash up had been common, albeit not quite in the same _direction_ as ours.

‘Why don’t we draw up a rota?’ I suggested. ‘Then we’ll be able to take turns, and nobody will feel like they aren’t able to do their fair share.’

Nightingale thought this was a sterling idea, and then we had a bit of a squabble over which of us should actually _do_ the drawing up of the rota – which Nightingale won, on the basis that his writing is far more legible than mine. I blame computers, personally.

I left Nightingale to do his washing up rota and to check over the paperwork we’d brought with us relating to the case, and I set out to do an IVA of the estate. Something was bothering me about the intel, and I wanted to get a sense of the whole of the place and identify any lacunae or hotspots of uncanny before I prejudiced anything with good old fashioned police work.

Wyndham had been built in the 1970s, and opened for business just in time to see the dockyards – and most of the local employment – shut up shop. Deptford was properly grim back then, but most local historians will been keen to tell you there’d been quite a thriving arts scene – no doubt just what all those unemployed dockers needed. Over the decades, the local estates had seen successive generations of kids grow up and mostly leave – until suddenly the area had started to have a bit of something again. Maybe it was Cool Britannia, maybe it was investment in local infrastructure and the arts. But presumably it was the something that, today, had blossomed into endless articles extolling Deptford as “the next Dalston”.

Lewisham Borough Council, perhaps sensing an opportunity to be shot of aging housing stock and recharge their coffers, had decided to pull Wyndham down in the mid 00s and sell off the land to a developer so that they could build nice new affordable housing in its place. A few determined die-hards had stuck it out and refused to leave – much like my former neighbours in Skygarden. This had delayed the deal long enough that by the time the last residents had been ousted in 2010, the developer had gone bust and nobody else had been interested. There were better options elsewhere. So the Council had a nice empty housing estate which it had proceeded to fill with the criminally desperate and, occasionally, the desperately criminal. Unlike Skygarden, where the tower had been a focal point for more or less all the activity on the estate, Wyndham didn’t have a natural centre. The three blocks surrounded a grassy area criss-crossed with paths, with some dilapidated swings and two rows of benches – but there didn’t seem to be any communal areas. I found out later that they were used as storage and no longer available to the residents.

Each of the blocks was more or less self-contained, so that I couldn’t imagine you’d see much of anyone living outside your building. As I walked around, I tried to block out the distractions of traffic and city life beyond and listen, as well as keeping my spidey senses open to vestigia. But there wasn’t much of anything, really. A few stairwells where something nasty had gone down at some point, but nothing strong or recent – certainly nothing that would have garnered much of a reaction from Toby. And, importantly – but somewhat frustratingly, given our reason for being here – no traces of magic. If the admittedly high number of disappearances were related to Faceless, I couldn’t see that he’d been directly involved. And if he’d been here, he hadn’t been chucking magic about – but then, that didn’t seem to be his M.O. Perhaps I should check the rooftops.

It also meant that whoever the members of the demi-monde were that Zach had been referring to, they were keeping things suspiciously under wraps. Maybe in these crazy energy efficient times magical insulation was part of Lewisham Council’s strategy to reduce carbon emissions.

Frustrated, I finished my assessment of the western and northern blocks and returned to the eastern building to complete the set. By now I wasn’t expecting to find anything, and my expectations were met – until I reached the third floor - our floor. I’d skipped it to check out the upper two levels before returning for the home stretch, but I was surprised to find something – at least, what I thought might be something. Vestigia of some sort, but nothing I could describe. Just… something. A vague feeling, perhaps, of having somewhere else to be. It was diffuse, but I thought it was centred on the flat three doors down, where Toby and I’d met our young friend the evening before. This time last year, I probably wouldn’t have noticed anything at all, and I’d missed it last night when I hadn’t been actively looking.

I heard footsteps from behind, and a young white girl who looked to be in her teens came from the direction of the stairwell, passed me with an appropriately suspicious glower and continued to the other end of the corridor, where she vanished into the flat. I walked past the stairwell and looked through to the central lawn – there seemed to be a few more people about now: school was out. I debated loitering for a bit somewhere I could observe people as they came home, but since most of the current subjects were kids I thought it might be better to wait a while. I didn’t want to scare anyone, or get noticed – both of which were quite likely if the residents of Wyndham had an appropriately healthy level of suspicion for new neighbours. So I went back to the flat.

*

Over tea and Jaffa cakes, I gave Nightingale the lowdown on my IVA of the estate. He listened intently to my description of the sort-of-vestigia, before jumping up and disappearing – presumably to go and have a look for himself. He came back in a couple of minutes later and re-joined me in the living room.

‘I see what you mean,’ he said. ‘It’s extraordinary – I can’t say I’ve seen anything _quite_ like it. Although as it happens I think I might have an explanation for it.’

Interesting. ‘Have you heard back from Stephanopoulos yet on the IIP?’ I asked, wondering about this sudden insight.

Nightingale smiled. ‘It took them a while to chase, but yes,’ he said. ‘The flat is occupied – and, in fact, owned by one R. Thames.’

‘Would that be R for Ravensbourne?’ I asked.

‘Yes, very good,’ said Nightingale. ‘Although I must admit, I don’t think I’ve met her more than once, about twenty years ago, or thereabouts. Just before your friend Beverley was born, I believe.’

I tried to remember which of Bev’s sisters I’d met at Mama Thames’ place in Wapping, the couple of times I’d been. There had been quite a lot of daughters and various other devotees and I couldn’t remember all of their names, but I was pretty sure I hadn’t been introduced to a Ravensbourne at any point. And I don’t think Bev had mentioned her in conversation either, although generally she tries to avoid talking about her sisters at all costs so that didn’t mean much. But it did mean she probably wouldn’t enjoy our phone call later an awful lot, given what I was now going to ask.

Nightingale brought me up to speed with the review of the case notes on the disappearances.

‘No clear patterns,’ he said. ‘They weren’t centred on one block in particular, and there aren’t any known connections between the missing – although of course, it may be something that the locals have missed.’

‘Whatever it is can’t be magical, that I can see,’ I said. ‘This place is clean – apart from our neighbour, and even there we don’t have any cause to suspect her, do we?’

‘No,’ said Nightingale. ‘We don’t. But the lack of overt signs of magic doesn’t necessarily preclude magical involvement – even if it makes our job difficult in trying to isolate the nature of that involvement. And I must say, it will be doubly tricky to track down our leads with the little information Mr Palmer passed on.’

‘Perhaps we can pressure him for more details,’ I said.

‘Perhaps,’ said Nightingale. ‘But if his contacts are afraid of revealing themselves…’ he sighed. ‘We don’t want to push too hard and spook them. It would be much easier if we had a larger network of sources locally. I’m afraid there’s something of a Deptford-shaped hole in my little black book.’

I wondered if the book was real or metaphorical, like the various agreements.

My phone rang, and it was Obe letting me know he was downstairs. It took him all of ten minutes to install the mobile broadband hotspot, after which we had another cup of tea, and then Nightingale excused himself to start on dinner. Since I had a little time, I offered to shout Obe a drink if he could introduce me to a decent local pub, and we ended up having a quick round in the Dog & Bell, which served real ales and was conveniently close enough to his girlfriend’s gaff that she joined us straight from work.

Nightingale rang to give me the agreed half hour warning for dinner, so I said my goodbyes and headed back south towards the High Street. The Dog & Bell was to the north of Deptford near the Thames, opposite the site of one of the old dockyards, which I could see was undergoing development. An artist’s impression showed a modern “multi-purpose” site, with public space and mixed use commercial and residential buildings. Our part of Deptford might be resisting gentrification, but the old centre of industry seemed only too glad to acquiesce to the siren call of the twenty first century.

I reached the bright lights of Deptford High Street and fell in with a procession of commuters leaving the station. It was dark now, and chilly enough that I wished I’d brought my coat. I turned off towards Wyndham, and a few of the commuters peeled off along with me; a young East Asian couple with what looked like a week’s worth of shopping between them, and a middle-aged black man who was singing along to something – whether it was an MP3 player or a tune in his head, I couldn’t tell. Most of the estate kids were inside now, except for a small posse of teenagers smoking on the benches and comparing stuff on their phones. I reached the stairs to the east building and almost bumped into a couple of white guys loitering next to the under-stairs void space that acted as a bicycle park for half a dozen bikes. They stopped talking and watched me pass in silence, and I tried to look both as solid and as unthreatening as I could at the same time. As I turned to scale the second flight of steps, I peered over to get a look at ground floor landing below and I saw them both leave the same way I’d come in.

*

Dinner was delicious. Nightingale had pan-fried the sea bream to perfection, and served the fish in a herby butter sauce with mashed potatoes and steamed vegetables on the side.

‘I think Molly had better watch out, sir’ I said. ‘This is seriously good.’ He looked suitably pleased, and a little embarrassed.

‘Well, that’s very nice of you to say, Peter,’ he said. ‘But it’s all about the ingredients, really.’ I wondered if he’d been sneaking in the odd episode of Masterchef amongst his illicit rugby, while I wasn’t looking.

Dessert was a fresh fruit salad, consisting of pineapple, strawberries and blueberries. Having had our five-a-day, we addressed our caffeine needs and washed the meal down with some of Molly’s posh instant. After a bit of a digestive pause, Nightingale proudly produced his rota which was very neat, and got full marks for penmanship. It also informed me that it was my turn to wash up, so I gladly obliged. Afterwards, I set the laptop up to get BBC iPlayer so that Nightingale could listen to an episode of _The Goon Show_ on Radio 4. I wasn’t sure if the mobile broadband was going to be fast enough, but it came through fine without any weird buffering. Nice one, Obe.

With Himself occupied, I went into my bedroom, closed the door, sat down on the bed and called Beverley. She answered almost instantly.

‘Hey, Peter.’

‘Hi Bev. Can you talk?’ I could hear voices in the background; lots of them, by the sounds of it.

‘Hang on… Just… One…’

The background chatter faded, and I heard a door close.

‘That’s better,’ said Beverley. ‘I couldn’t hear myself think in there.’

‘Everything okay?’ I asked. ‘You said you wanted to speak to me. That you _needed_ to speak to me. Not that I wouldn’t have – ‘

‘Peter!’ Beverley interjected, laughing. ‘Stop. It’s good to hear your voice by the way, but no, I wasn’t pining for you or anything, so don’t worry. And yeah, I did need to talk.’

‘Fine,’ I said, hesitantly. ‘Er. Is this a… “we need to talk” talk?’

‘What? No, don’t be stupid,’ said Beverley. ‘Look, I just wanted to say… Be careful. That’s all.’

I sighed. I’ve never been a fan of cryptic, but I’ve spent enough time around various members of the demi-monde – and Nightingale – to get the hang of it. I thought I knew where this might be going. ‘Bev, do you know where I am right now?’

She hesitated. ‘Yeah. I know where you are.’

I _wanted_ to ask how, but had a feeling she wasn’t going to say – and at any rate, there was a more important question that needed attending to.

‘Look, Bev. Can you come over here tomorrow and introduce me to your sister? Please? It would save a lot of fucking about.’

‘I don’t know if I can do that, Peter.’

‘Why not?’

‘It’s not as simple as just coming over. You know what I explained to you up in bumpkin-land? I can’t be in someone else’s manor like that without making good with the locals, if you know what I’m sayin’.’

The locals? ‘She’s your _sister_ ,’ I pointed out. ‘Aren’t you technically local too? Don’t you have visitation rights?’

‘It’s not like that,’ she said. ‘Not with Rae. Technically, none of us are supposed to be in her ends without asking.’

‘Come on Bev,’ I said. ‘I don’t understand. What the fuck is going on?’

She sighed. ‘Look, nothing is going on, Peter. It’s just a family disagreement, that’s all. Rae and Ty had a major bust up like, ten years ago.’

‘How major?’ I had to ask.

‘Pretty major. We haven’t seen her since. Well, mum has a few times, but basically she’s been off the radar.’

‘Fuck.’

‘Yeah.’

‘So you haven’t seen her since you were, what, ten?’

‘Nope,’ said Beverley. ‘Look, I’ll have a word with mum. But no promises, yeah?’

What else could I say? ‘Yeah. Thanks Bev. Miss you.’

‘Stay safe, Peter,’ she said, and hung up.

I went back to find Nightingale’s program coming to an end. I felt a bit bad to be the bearer of probably-bad news given that he seemed to be in his happy place, wherever that was, but I thought he should probably know. So I told him.

‘Seems we’ve walked into a bit of a domestic,’ he said, scratching his chin. ‘Interesting.’

‘A Thames family domestic,’ I said. ‘Whatever _that_ means.’

Nightingale looked thoughtful. ‘I think it means that we approach things as diplomatically as possible. Give Beverley a chance to talk to her mother, at least.’

‘What does it mean for the case, though, sir?’ I asked. He seemed to be taking it rather well.

‘Don’t worry about the case,’ said Nightingale. ‘It will probably be necessary to pay Ravensbourne a visit soon, with or without the benefit of an introduction. And if things are as Beverley says, perhaps that’s not the best way to go about it anyway. All we need to do is knock on her door, after all.’

‘We’re undercover,’ I pointed out.

‘Then we ask to borrow a cup of sugar. Do people still do that?’

‘Well, yes,’ I said. ‘But I’m not sure what Beverley meant by “be careful”. I have a feeling there was something she felt she couldn’t tell me.’

But whatever it was, me and Nightingale couldn’t figure it out despite discussing things at great length. This whole case so far was an exercise in frustration: anonymous leads we had no means of finding; nothing to connect the victims; the possibility there was no real Falcon aspect at all, let alone a link to Faceless; and – for the bonus prize – the opportunity to get caught in the figurative (or possibly literal, given Beverley’s dire warning) crossfire of a Thames family feud.

Nightingale decided to turn in early, and I got to walk Toby. At least some things in life are constant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coming up in the next chapter, the mysterious Ravensbourne finally makes an appearance, the case takes a turn for the weird, and Peter and Nightingale have a whiskey-fuelled boys night in.


End file.
